SI NULLUS UMOR FORNICARI EIS

Your issue has been brought to our attention here at the Corporate
Office today, June 11, 2015 at 4:00 PM EST. Due to your limited contact information, we were unable to call you. This is in regard with your request to change your number and to be reimbursed with minutes. In relation to this, we would like to speak with you directly for further assistance.

Pending whether or not a new SIM actually shows up tomorrow, I thought this was settled.

As for “limited contact information,” they have my full name (which they mostly still refuse to use), my current phone number, my phone serial number, my security question answer, and my full mailing address. What’s left; brain-to-brain Vulcan mind meld?

I’m *very* close to simply getting a $10 dispos-A-phone and an hour of airtime to take care of emergencies. Every phone we get has poorer audio quality than the last; for the last seven or eight years, I’ve only used the cell phone to tell someone I’ll call them back from a real phone as soon as I can. I probably rack up less than half an hour per month.

The pricing for a smartphone data plan approaches rape, and I’m simply not going to pay it. Pay-as-you-go pricing seems to be set to “bend over, if you could get a plan anywhere else you wouldn’t be dealing with us.” I have a real desktop with three 24″ monitors, 35-megabit broadband, and a real IBM AT/339 keyboard larger and heavier than most modern laptop computers; wtf do I need to dick around with a handheld device for?

Audio: True that. My very first cell phone, old analog system, had audio quality equal to a decent wireline phone so long as I had good signal strength. But these days, the quality sucks; it seems to be a result of voice bandwidth limiting and too bloody much compression (to get as many customers on the network as possible without bothering to expand network bandwidth.

But worse than the voice quality is the latency. I used my cell to call a wireline phone to talk to myself. When I spoke (standard test count), it could be 2-3 seconds before the sound actually came out the wired handset. Like talking to someone on the Moon. Again, that seems to be congestion, a network bandwidth issue. When I talk to someone, I have to make a point of waiting a while before replying, so we don’t keep talking over each other.

Smartphone pricing & use: Yeah, the prices are insane. And I’d rather do my online stuff on a real computer, too. But a lot of people seem to be lost if they can’t stumble and trip down the sidewalk while checking Twitter feeds and Facebook, or text, “Hw R U BRO L8R,” 24/7.

Come to think of it, given the voice latency problem, it’s no wonder that people prefer to text.

TIP JAR

I’ve got a ‘check engine’ light on the 22yo truck, registration and insurance renewal coming up, Internet bill, other bills, and a general lack of funds. I hate specifically asking for help (as opposed to leaving a passive tip link laying around), but…